Macalistkr — Ternary Breg : Remains and Traditions of Tara. 287 



built around her was called Teipe-mur. It. was seen by Tea wife of Eremon 

 (sic),and when she came to Ireland with her husban I from Spain she followed 

 it as a model in lmilding her own fortification; and she erected a rampart 

 like that of Tephi, on every hill thai she chose as a fortress. 



No one could Maine any impatient reader who would protest, at this 

 point, that it is utterly impossible to extract any sense or reason out of all 

 this farrago. Certain sciolists, he might very justly say. wished to find by 

 hook or by crook an etymology for the name of Temair, and to do so they 

 invented a story of quite unusual silliness. But we are not entitled to brush 

 aside the legend in so cavalier a manner. In the first place, we note that if 

 the tale had been invented merely for the purpose of explaining the origin of 

 the name of Temair, the inventors would have rested content with the, for 

 them, brilliant inspiration of Tea Slur, and would not have embarrassed 

 themselves with Tephi at all. It is quite clear that the Dind-shenchas writers, 

 both prose and verse, were more interested in the etymology than in the 

 romance : and it is also obvious that Tephi was very much in their way ; she 

 was in the story, but they did not know what to do with her. The whole 

 Tephi fatuity, as it appears to be at first sight, is really one of the best 

 arguments against the story being merely a philological invention, and for the 

 etymologies being an adaptation of something that was already in existence. 

 In the second place, the story exists in several versions, and, indeed, we can 

 trace two versions combined together in the Dind-shenchas tale, which made 

 Tea the wife, in the one version of Eremon, and in the other of Geide. An 

 inventor would not have introduced this unnecessary complication. Lebor 

 Gabdla gives a different form of the story, which will be found (inter alia) in 

 LL 13 0. According to this, Tea was the daughter of Lugaid mac Itha, and 

 was wife of Eremon, the mother of his youngest son Iriel ; Eremon had 

 deserted his previous wife Odba in Spain, in order to attach himself feo Tea. 

 Odba, however, came in a ship to Ireland, with Muimne, I.uigne. and Laigne, 

 the three sons that she had borne to Eremon : and she was in Ireland till she 

 died and was buried in the hill of Odba, near Navan. Meanwhile. Tea had 

 begged of Eremon a heritage and a burial-place, and he had given her Druim 

 Cain, as it was then called. Seemingly Odba here takes the place ^i Tephi, 

 and the Camson incident is ignored. Cormac the glossator knew the story, 

 and refers to it (s. v. Temair). 



It is to be noted that Tephi is said to have laid out her stronghold with 

 the aid of her staff and her brooch. The same expression is used in speaking 

 of the foundation of Emain Madia by queeu Madia ; and it is there adapted 

 by the etymologizers to give some son of derivation for the word Emain 

 (LL 20 b 50). The story of the brooch has i tymological point in the story 



K.J. A. ]>ROC, VOL. XXXIV, SECT. C. [40] 



